South Indian Inscriptions

GADAG INSCRIPTION OF BHILLAMA.

inscription ended with an appeal to future rulers to respect this grant, and with one or more of the customary benedictive and imprecatory verses.

......According to the above, the genealogy, furnished by this record of Bhillama,¹ is this :―

1. Sevanadeva.

2. Mallugideva, son of 1.


                                                          
3. Amaraganga, son of 2.       4. Karnadeva, younger brother of 3.                
                                                           
                                  5. Bhillamadeva, son of 4,

......Of these princes or kings, Sêvaṇadêva clearly is the Sêuṇa or Sêuṇachandra of whom we possess two inscriptions of Śaka-Saṁvat 991 ;² and Amaragaṅga is the Amaragâṅgêya who in Hêmâdri’s Vratakhaṇḍa³ also is stated to have been born from Mallugi, while in the Haraḷahaḷḷi copper-plates⁴ of Siṅghaṇa II. of Śaka-Saṁvat 1160 his name is given before that of Mallugi, his exact relationship to this prince being left undefined. Quite new to us are the name of Karṇadêva and the statement that he was Bhillama’s father. The Paiṭhan copper-plate⁵ of Râmachandra of Śaka-Saṁvat 1193 only record in a general way that Bhillama came after Mallugi ; but the Haraḷahaḷḷi plates distinctly assert that Bhillama was born from Mallugi, and this, too, is the conclusion which Professor Bhandarkar has drawn from the account of the Yâdava family given by Hêmâdri.― To reconcile these different statements is impossible, and, obliged to choose between them, I would unhesitatingly adopt the account given by the present inscription, because I do not believe that its author could have made a mistake about the name of the father of the sovereign whose grant he was recording.

......The name of the minister at whose representation this grant was made, according to our text, was Jaitasiṁha. He of course is the Jaitrasiṁha who, in line 30 of the Gadag inscription⁶ of the Hoysaḷa Vîra-Ballâḷa of Śaka-Saṁvat 1114, is described as the right arm of Bhillama, and whose defeat by Vîra-Ballâḷa is spoken of in that inscription. With great probability it has been suggested that this Jaitasiṁha or Jaitrasiṁha must be identical with Bhillama’s son and successor, Jaitugi or Jaitrapâla ; but it is somewhat strange that our inscription should be silent about the close relationship of both.

......The prose part of this inscription has much in common with the corresponding portion of the inscription of Vîra-Ballâḷa which has just been mentioned. It records a grant made in favour of the same temple, and mentions the same ascetic as the personage whose feet are supposed to have been washed by the donor. The date of our inscription corresponds, for Śaka-Saṁvat 1113 expired which was the Virôdhakṛit year, to Sunday, the 23rd June, A. D. 1191, when there was a solar eclipse which was visible in India, 10 h. 29 m. after mean sunrise ; and the date of Vîra-Ballâḷa’s inscription is Saturday, the 21st November, A.D. 1192. Between these two dates, therefore, Jaitasiṁha must have been defeated by Vîra-Ballâḷa, and must the country about Gadag have passed from the possession of Bhillama into that of the Hoysaḷa prince, a circumstance which undoubtedly caused somebody to efface Bhillama’s name in line 12 of this record.
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......¹ Compare Dr. Fleet’s Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts, p. 72, and Dr. Bhandarkar’s Early History of the Dekkan, p. 81.
......² See Ep. Ind. Vol. II. p. 224.
......³ See Dr. Bhandarkar, l.c. p. 112, v. 35.
......⁴ See Jour. Bo. As. Soc. Vol. XV. p. 386.
......⁵ See Ind. Ant. Vol. XIV. p. 315.
......⁶ See ib. Vol. II. p. 300.